Blues on the piano or the guitar?!
Question: Which has the more powerful statement?
Answers: Which has the more powerful statement?
Very tough question. One, I think, who's answer lies at the feet of personal taste. I love guitar for all the dynamics that can be used as well as bending notes and other tricks. But when you listen to piano players like Dr. John, Professor Longhair, Pinetop Perkins.....they bring a dynamic you can't get on a guitar. There are more combinations (of notes and chords) that are available on the real 88's and they can be mind blowing when used by a master.
guitar
I think it really depends on the player, and the listeners definition of "powerful".
I would definitely say guitar...
Piano blues is hard to pull off without sounding kind of honky-tonk. Not like anything is wrong with that... If you want to play a keyboard with blues, try an organ.
Nothing like a wailin' Hammond on a blues chorus ;-D
blues on the guitar definitely sounds better. you can put so much more feeling and sole into the music, allowing you to express what your feeling which is what the blues is. plus it looks cooler.lol.
I think the piano can articulate the bluesy sound, while the guitar can sometime be mistaken some other genre, so I think piano is more powerful.
that one is a tuff call, but when I think of blues, the git-box comes to mind.
BUT ... there were some powerful blues pianist, back in the day! like answerer #2 said, definition.
guitar would be my answer.
piano
To me, the very concept of blues includes the guitar. It's not very common to see people hitchhiking their way across the country carrying a piano over their back.
Guitar
Guitar takes me to places I've never been.
Robert Johnson not Elmore James
1) Harmonica
2) Electric guitar
3) Piano
In a band the guitar usually does but if the band is centered around a great keyboard player than it's the other.
Just vocals and instrument it's the same, acoustically the piano rules because you play both rhythm and Melody.
With electric the volume of the guitar can overwhelm.
It's more a matter of the quality of the player no matter what instrument whether it's Piano, Guitar, Sax or harp.
The heart
If you get good enough you can play blues on any instrument you like ... Remember Ian Anderson with his flute playing Rock? The key is to be unique.
Some of the best Blues is, in fact, played on a diddley bow. That's a cigar box and broomstick hooked up to an amplifier...
This particular Blues singer does a bang up job with a diddley bow he made himself after his guitar burned up in a fire in 2000, at Junior Kimbroughs Juke joint in Holly Springs Mississippi. He says" You got the dog, I got the dog, I got the dog in me!.... So cool.
Here it is, see and listen for yourself... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6nrfbdxhr...
Guitar........check out Muddy Waters' "Still a Fool"
Guitar gave blues and the blues made the guitar. However, there are some great blues pianists back then and now who can transition the blues on piano just as well as any blues guitarist. Still, I say guitar. Some chords such as the E chords and A chords and most diminished chords are often called "The Original Blues Chords" because they give you blues and motions of feeling.
It's a matter of history, taste, concept, location, etc.
But does anybody remember that the blues is primarily a VOCAL genre???
I.E., singing in front of the instrument??? The instrument is actually a second VOICE.
oooh, I love both of them and together even more.
I would have to say the piano though...
Ray Charles and Thelonious Monk showed me that.
For me, I love guitar.
I play guitar,but as Conchobor said - it's the heart.Blues is as much a feeling as anything and there are just as many piano players that have the feeling as there are guitarists.it doesn't have to be loud,either.Sometimes the most powerful statement is made quietly.